The Blue Hammer

XXXI

Captain Mackendrick was glad to see Rico, too. The three of us convened in Mackendrick's office with a male police stenotypist ready to record what was said. Rico didn't say anything at all until we brought in the sack of bones and iron. Mackendrick held it up in front of Rico's face and shook it. It made a strange dull clatter.

Mackendrick brought out the damaged skull and placed it on his desk. It looked empty-eyed at Rico. Rico returned the stare for a long moment. He tried to wet his lips with his dry tongue. Then he tried to scratch his head, but his fingers got tangled in the bandages he was now wearing.

"You used to be a pretty good young fellow," Mackendrick said. "I remember when you used to play volleyball on the beach, you liked good clean sport. You liked good clean work-mowing the lawn, washing the car. You thought Mr. Chantry was the greatest boss a young fellow ever had. You said so to me, remember?"

Tears had begun to roll from Rico's eyes and find twin downward channels on either side of his nose.

He said, "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for, Rico? Did you kill him?"

He shook his head, and the tears flew out from his face. "I don't even know who he is."

"Then why did you dig up his poor bones and try to get rid of them?"

"I don't know."

"You mean you do things without knowing why?"

"Sometimes. When people tell me."

"Who told you to get rid of these bones, weight them with iron, and chunk them in the sea? Who told you to do that?" Mackendrick said.

"I don't remember."

"Was it your own idea?"

The man recoiled from the suggestion. "No."

"Whose idea was it?"

Rico stared into the empty eyes of the skull. His face became even more sober, as if he had looked into a mirror and recognized his own mortal condition. He raised his hands and touched his cheeks with his fingertips, feeling the skull behind them.

"Is this Mr. Richard Chantry's skull?" Mackendrick said. "I don't know. Honest to God, I don't know."

"What do you know?"

He looked at the floor. "Nothing much. I always was a dumbhead."

"That's true, but not that dumb. You used to look out for yourself in the old days, Rico. You went for the girls, but you didn't let them lead you around by the nose. You didn't go out and commit a crime because a woman jiggled her hips at you. You used to have more sense than to do that."

The stenotypist's fingertips danced a rapid minuet on the keys of his machine. Rico was watching them as if they were miming a dance of death, telling his past or perhaps foretelling his future. His mouth opened and closed several times in an effort to find words. Then he began to whisper to himself, too low to be heard.

Mackendrick leaned forward, speaking quietly: "What did you say, Rico? Speak up, man, it may be important."

Rico nodded. "It is important. I had nothing to do with it."

"Nothing to do with the murder, you mean?"

"That's right. It was all her doing. My conscience is clear on that. She told me to bury him, which I did. Then twenty-five years later she told me to dig him up. That's all I did."

Rico was looking into the empty eyes of the skull. They seemed to be draining all the life from his own eyes.

"All you did." Mackendrick echoed him softy and sardonically. "All you did was bury a murdered man and later dig him up and try to dispose of his bones in the sea. Why would you do that if you didn't kill him?"

"Because she told me to."

"Who told you to?"

"Mrs. Chantry."

"She told you to bury her husband's body?"

Mackendrick had risen and stood over Rico, who moved his head from side to side, trying to evade the weight of Mackendrick's shadow.

"It isn't her husband's body."

"Who is it, then?"

"It was just a guy that came to the door one day about twenty-five years ago. He wanted to see Mr. Chantry. I told him that Mr. Chantry was working in his studio and anyway he didn't see people without an appointment. But the guy said Mr. Chantry would see _him_ if I gave him his name."

"What _was_ his name?" Mackendrick said.

"I'm sorry. I don't remember."

"What did he look like?"

"He just looked ordinary. Kind of pale and flabby, not in good shape. The most outstanding thing about him, he didn't talk too good. I mean, he talked like he had a stroke or something. He sounded like an old bum, only he wasn't that old."

"How old was he?"

"Early thirties, maybe. Older than I was, anyway."

"How was he dressed?"

"Not too good. He had on a kind of brown suit that didn't fit too well. I remember thinking at the time, it looked like he got it at the Starvation Army."

"Did you take him in to see Mr. Chantry?"

"She did. They were in the studio talking for quite a while, all three of them."

"What were they talking about?" I said.

"I didn't listen in. They closed the door, and that's a solid oak door about three inches thick. After a while, she brought him out and sent him on his way."

Mackendrick made a contemptuous dry spitting sound. "You just got through telling us that you buried him. Are you withdrawing that statement?"

"No, sir. That was later in the week, when he came back with the woman and the little boy."

"What woman? What little boy?"

"She was a woman around thirty, I'd say. Pretty good figure, otherwise nothing much to look at-kind of a blah brunette. Her little boy was around seven or eight. He was very quiet. He didn't ask questions the way kids usually do. In fact, I didn't hear him say a word the whole time he was there. And no wonder. He must have been right there when it happened."

"What did happen?"

Rico answered slowly, "I don't know for sure. I didn't _see_ it happen. But after it was all over, there was this body in the greenhouse scrunched up in a big old sack. She said he had a stroke and fell and hit his head and died on her. She said she didn't want any trouble, so I should bury him. She said if I would be nice to her and bury him, then she would be nice to me."

"So you've been in her bed for the last twenty-five years," Mackendrick said with distaste. "And this poor bastard has been in the ground feeding her orchids. Isn't that right?"

Rico lowered his head and looked at the scarred floor between his feet. "I guess it is. But I didn't kill him."

"You covered up for whoever did. Who did?"

"I don't know. I didn't see it happen."

"In the course of twenty-five years in her bed, did you ever think of asking her who killed him?"

"No, sir. It wasn't my business."

"It is now. You're all in this together, I guess you know that-you and Mr. Chantry and Mrs. Chantry and the brunette with the little boy." Mackendrick picked up the skull again and held it, like a memento mori, close to Rico's face. "Are you sure this isn't Mr. Chantry?"

"No, sir. I mean yes, sir, I'm sure it isn't."

"What makes you sure? You buried him in a sack."

"She said it was the other man-the man in the brown suit."

"But all you have is her word for it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Mrs. Chantry's word for it?"

"Yes, sir."

Mackendrick gave the skull a long sad look, which he transferred to me. "Do you have any questions you want to ask him?"

"Thanks, I do, Captain." I turned back to Rico. "Assuming this skull isn't Richard Chantry's, what do you think happened to Richard Chantry?"

"I always thought he just walked away."

"Why?"

"I don't know why."

"Did you ever see him again, or hear from him?"

"No, sir. He left this letter behind-you've probably seen it in the art museum."

"I've seen it. When did he write it?"

"I don't know."

"Between the time he killed this man and the time he walked away?"

"I don't know when he wrote it. I never saw him or talked to him after that day."

"Did Mrs. Chantry tell you where he went?"

"No, sir. I don't believe she knew."

"Did he take anything with him?"

"Not that I know of. _She_ looked after his things after he left."

"Was Mrs. Chantry unhappy about his leaving?"

"I don't know. She didn't talk to me about it."

"Not even in bed?"

Rico flushed. "No, sir."

"What about the dark-haired woman and the little boy? Did you ever see them again?"

"No, sir. I didn't go out looking for them, either. They were none of my business."

"What is your business, Rico?"

"Looking after the house and the people. I do the best I can."

"There's only one person left in the house, isn't that right?"

"I guess so. Mrs. Chantry."

I turned to Mackendrick. "Do you think she'll answer questions?"

"I'm not ready to ask them," Mackendrick said in a strained voice. "I have to check with the higher-ups on this."

I wanted to go on checking with the lower-downs, but I needed Mackendrick's cooperation. I waited until Rico had been taken out and placed in a holding cell. When Mackendrick and I were alone in his office with the skull and bones, I told him briefly what had happened, or what I thought had happened, to Betty Siddon.

Mackendrick fidgeted at his desk. His face flushed and became obtuse, as if his circuits were getting overloaded.

Finally he broke in: "I can't do anything about the Siddon woman tonight. I wouldn't even if I had the men. Women are always taking off on their own little business. She's a goodlooking piece; she's probably sacked out in her boyfriend's apartment."

I came close to taking a swing at Mackendrick. I sat and contained my rage, which boiled cold in my head like liquid gas. I told myself to watch it. If I let myself go out of control, as I had been threatening to do all evening, I could find myself locked out of the case, or possibly locked into a holding cell, like Rico.

I concentrated on the skull on the desk, reminding myself that men were supposed to calm down as they got older. When I had myself in hand, I said, "I sort of am her boyfriend."

"I thought so. I still don't have the men to go around knocking on doors. You don't have to worry about her, take my word for it. She's a smart girl and this is her town. If she doesn't turn up overnight, we'll reassess the situation in the morning."

He was beginning to talk like a chief of police. I caught myself hoping that he would never make it. But I seemed to have been elected to help him on his way.

"May I make a couple of suggestions, Captain? And a couple of requests?"

He cast an impatient glance at the electric clock on the wall: it registered close to midnight. "You've earned the right to that."

"We should try to pinpoint the date of this man's death. It should coincide with the date of Chantry's disappearance. That date should be checked for other disappearances, here and in the whole Southern California area, particularly the hospitals and asylums. This man sounds like a possible mental patient." I reached out and touched the poor broken skull.

"We do all that as a matter of routine," Mackendrick said.

"Sure. But this isn't a routine situation. I think you should start burning up the wires."

"Because you're worried about your girl?"

"I'm worried about her and several other people. This isn't just past history that we're dealing with. There are crimes in the present, too, including the crime of murder. And I have a feeling that they're all connected."

"How?"

"Probably through the disappearance of Chantry. That seems to be the central event in the series." I briefly rehearsed the others, beginning with the apparent murder of William Mead in Arizona thirty-two years before, and concluding with the deaths of the art dealers Paul Grimes and Jacob Whitmore.

"What makes you so certain that they're connected?"

"Because the people are connected. Grimes was Chantry's teacher and very good friend. Grimes bought the picture of Mildred Mead from Whitmore. William Mead was Chantry's half brother, and incidentally the son of Mildred Mead. Mildred seems to be one of the two central women in the case. The other one is Mrs. Chantry, of course. If we could get hold of those women and get them talking-"

"Mrs. Chantry is out," Mackendrick said, "at least for the present. I can't bring her in for questioning on Rico's say-so." He looked at me as if he were about to say more, but fell silent.

"What about Mildred Mead?"

Mackendrick reddened in anger or embarrassment. "Who is this Mildred Mead? I never heard of her before."

I showed him my photograph of her picture and told him the story that went with it. "She probably knows more about the background of this case than anybody else. With the possible exception of Mrs. Chantry."

"Where can we find Mildred Mead? Does she live here in town?"

"She did until recently. She probably still does, in one of the nursing homes. She's the woman that Betty Siddon was looking for."

Mackendrick sat and looked at me. His face passed moonlike through a number of phases, from anger and disgust to acceptance touched with heavy humor.

"Okay," he said, "you win. We'll make the rounds of the nursing homes and see if we can find those two women."

"May I come?"

"No. I'm going to supervise this search myself."